Weapons length and reach in combat

When posting a comment on the A Paladin in Citadel blog about the value of weapon length modifiers I realized it had turned into a post of its own. I have posted on this topic before, but it's worth revisiting. Here we go.

Those rules, adding a sense of simulation to the play, are probably jettisoned because they make combats longer.

While it might be heresy, I might suggest that those who prefer tactical crunch should take a closer look at D&D 4th ed. The teamwork and tactical play needed for efficient combat is a big part of that game. Even with the fiddly bits of 1st ed., it never was a very tactically detailed game.

Now, that being said, there are some ways to incorporate tactical details while making the game decently swift. One good way to add some depth and planning to the combat phases is to have different phases in combat. Ranged combat and magic have their own phases, and I'd suggest they go before melee.

When it comes to weapon length, I think Elric!/Stormbringer can add a simple way to handle that. This is how it works. If you have your weapons categorized as "long" or "short", the longer ones will have reach to hit before the short ones do. Simple enough.

When attacking, in whatever order you choose, let "long" weapons go first. If you use DEX order or side initiative, follow that but let long weapons trumph that order.

For fighters with "short" weapons, they will have to make a dodge of some kind to get within the reach of the "long" weapon. Otherwise they can not attack. The same thing then apply when the opponent have dodged within your reach. Wielding a "long" weapon you then need to make a disengaging dodge in order to use your weapon again.

While it reduces the reach to a binary situation, it have the benefit of being very simple, but still managing to create a lot more tactical depth to the choice of weapons. Should your game system of choice, D&D say, not have a dodge skill, use the initiative! Dice off or use DEX or whatever method you normally use. A great idea from Tomas Arfert's Saga RPG.

Hopefully that gave some food for thought.

The madness continues - unabated

 

Remember that I posted before about games I own but haven't played? Well, the madness continues. I still haven't played DragonQuest.

But, now I own not one, not two but four copies of the game! Somebody save me from myself. By the way, I do have extra copies of Enchanted Wood, Blade of Allectus and Palace of the Ontocle if someone is interested.

I really need to play DragonQuest, don't I?

How to have interesting extened conflicts

I have been thinking on how some parts of rpgs never seem to turn into the drama intended, but devolve into endless rolls of the dice without any of the buy in and excitement I had hoped for. Lucky for me, the guys at the Narrative Control podcast have been thinking on this as well. A mashup of their ideas in show #65 and my own follows.

Everyone have probably tried to run a game where one guy suddenly is the focus of everything, and the rest is sitting idle. Maybe the thief is checking for traps and picking locks or maybe the netrunner is hacking a computer system. In both cases the rest of the players do nothing. While shared narrative control and kibitzing can help somewhat (like I talked about in my last post), maybe some rule support to keep everyone involved would be a good thing.

Here are the things you can do, and import in your game as rules supporting more engaging play.

1. A Unified Mechanic - One way to make even climbing a cliff or a trek through a snowstorm engaging is to have it use the same game mechanic as the players. Stat up the snow storm, and let it have an AC, attack rolls and defensive maneuvers. Yeah, I know it sounds daft to have the door you are trying to break down or pick the lock have an attack. But, imagine how it "attacks" your concentration as you pick the lock. Maybe the door attacks you and as a result pearls of sweat forms on the forehead of the thief giving him -1 to his picking because his will is strained? The cliff might not maneuver away, but that beast you are trying to rescue up that cliff might be climbing higher! What I'm saying is, let the whole challenge act as more than it's just sitting there. Make it an active participant in the challenge. It sure helps if you can use the same mechanic that you have used since fifth grade while killing orcs, right?
2. It's Not Over Until It's Over - In the marvellously cool game Wushu, everything you as a player say is true. Yes, you can say in the first volley of melee that you strike the villain through the heart. As long as the Threat Rating (I don't remember the specific term) is not down to 0, anything goes! When inventing cool moves is part of the game, everyone listen up just to hear what outrageous stuff their friends is inviting.
3. Let Everyone Pitch In - Closely tied to the last point is the idea that everyone should be able to chip in. If you think the NPC made a lame move, suggest something cooler to the GM! Listen up, game masters! When someone is trying to make your job easier, let them. It's just more engaging for everyone if everyone is engaged. Right?
4. Make It Measurable - There is one thing among all this loose and woozy stuff that I'd suggest you add some crunch to. In order to have tactical options, and in order to make informed choices, the players need information. If you need to figure out the big trap in order to stop the doomsday device, don't just reduce it to a bunch of skill checks. Here is where I differ from the guys on the Narrative Control podcast. I think the skill challenges in D&D4 bores me to tears. With a skill list that short it tales all of two seconds to figure out one skill you need, and a backup. Instead, toss the skill list or make it far longer. Better is to have the players just speak their mind. Whatever they say that sounds cool, investigative or proactive, give them a +1 or an extra die or whatever. Then let them go at the doomsday device. Now for the interesting part. Have a tally of their progress, and make it public. Make them see what made the scales tilt in the preferred direction and what did not. Actions should count, not rolls.

Some of you might think this is just bogus, or maybe newfangled ways to beat down open doors. More power to you! If you have an un-engaging game, try some of these ideas out, or think them over and tell me what worked for you.

I love these ideas.

Never split the group! Maybe you should...

I have had the fortune to be invited to a Unknown Armies game. The gamemaster is one of my dear readers, and he have done some quite cool things with the set-up for the game I wanted to talk about.

As everyone who have wondered about ecology in the dungeon, or "naturalism", knows there are a few things you just can't explain or have make sense without some major thinking ahead. Personally I lean far enough into the gonzo side of things, but if you want it all to make sense, one thing to watch out for it why the party adventure together.

In Call of Cthulhu there is one attempt to create a narrative structure, Delta Green. It's quite successfull. In our UA game we have The Band.

The band is called Unpeace, and was the greatest of them all. Well, it was riding the wave of death metal, mixing in some symphonic influences and a healthy dose of showmanship. After releasing one album the band was dissolved, but it's legacy and memory is very much alive. Now there will be a documentary, and a lot of memories are being brought to the surface. Naturally the player characters are the members of this band.

So, what's so cool about this?

Well. One thing I find interesting is how our game master have handled the fact that all PCs have a gigantic ego and loves to be in the spotlight all the time. Considering that, I think the solution is both neat and obvious when you think of it. We all met at a bar to talk to the film crew, and when the bar fight erupted and somebody's wife calls them to pick up the kids, we went in our different directions.

We split the party. It just made sense.

Now, to just idle and do nothing is the main cause for boredom when splitting the party, so naturally you have to keep the individual segments short and too the point. There is another trick in the bag, though. Since we have all played a few of those new fangled forge style games, we are quite confortable with the idea of shared narrative. This is used to good effect.

When my character, high on cocaine, runs into an alley after having hit somebody with his car, he finds somebody. The GM just said to me it was, I think, someone whom I had been missing lately. I could have said it was one of the other PCs, and suddenly the player sitting by my side would have been in that scene. Naturally, the other players could chip in their suggestions as well. I thought that was cool. While nothing really revolutionary, it was a good example of how the ideas of kibitzing and shared narrative can help make the split party less of a problem.

Let's think more of how the narrative structure helped the game along.

We all knew, from the first short conversations with some NPCs that we had arranged to start filming tomorrow. Thus we had a structure to the game, and could goof off until we were bored and it was tomorrow.

That also made it easy to split the party, running off doing wild things, since we could all participate to some extent.

I have often muttered about how the holy grail of sandboxing demands pro-active players. In this case we all knew that we had a Story, the film. If we wanted something to happen, we could just do something related to the film, like fight about whether we should play some songs, if we should film individually or as a group. I foresee lots of opportunities when the GM as the crew asks us about filming a scene about when "Frank fell off the stage". Guess if the possibilities of shared narrative are going to be utilized then!

To have an organization that gives you missions is one good way to keep the party together. Having some shared history like the Band creates natural conflicts, and some natural allies. Having the film being done is a good way to drag the PCs together again if we split up. Having the ability to chip in helps everyone to be involved. I think this set-up is great.

Can this be done in your vanilla D&D style fantasy game? Well, there's always the DragonQuest solution, with the Guild of Adventurers and their contract [sic!] spelled out in the rules!

You like dice?

I just found this out. That dude is serious about dice! Impressive stuff, to say the least.

Raven c.s. McCracken would be proud

Tonight when I got home from work, my wife told me what the kids had been playing when taking their bath. Apparently our son had said "I'm breathing fire!" and had been playing a dragon. Determined to top this, our daughter (creator of the Chaos Turkey) decided that "...and I'm shooting laser beams from my eyes!"

Her explanation for what lasers are became very labyrinthine and involved. Lasers are for shooting out of your head... 

Ain't that grand?

My thoughts on sandboxing

A few days ago I read some reviews of old Swedish modules, the shared heritage kind of thing, if you like. I noticed that one module was described as a "fishtank", and the way it was described it was clear that some kind of sandbox was what the author was describing. That made me look at what was provided, and how that stack up.

I guess anyone interested in the subject have seen Rob Conley's major series of posts on how to create a sandbox? I have a suggestion. Don't read it. Yet.

That series, while informative and exhaustive, is way too much. To start a sandbox you need far less. This module that ignited the fire fuelling the this train of thought provided far less.

• A sketchy map, with some atmospheric names, is great for inspiring wonder and creating ideas for adventure.
• Some NPCs who move about this area, with clear motives and plans for players getting involved in, helping or thwarting.
• Pro active players who can look at that map and run with the ideas generated from it.
• Player characters with ambitions and short and long term goals.
• A few McGuffins.

I'm pretty sure that is all there is to it.

Note that I have never successfully ran a sandbox campaign, so what do I know?

The question about RuneQuest magic

I came late to the show. RQ had already passed on, and while there was this new game being worked on it took ages and everyone still spoke in RQ terms. Finally I got the new game, HeroWars, and while it was an eye opener it was also one of the worst produced games I've ever seen. But, it did give me some vocabulary to speak about Gloranthan things. Then there was these RQ terms.

One bone of contention is the vocabulary of magic. In HW the different magic paradigms are very different. In RQ3, there are spirit magic, divine magic and then there's sorcery. Even though the latter is supposed to be more powerful and take more study, it's quite similar in game effect to divine magic, which comes from the gods. Then there's the spirit magic, which even though coming from spirits look just like the spells of divine magic. I always wondered why there wasn't just one game mechanic and the metaphysics just background facts.

Now, in RQ2 things were named differently. There was something called battle magic, which I think was not at all that related to battle. I seem to remember something called Rune magic as well. Whatever that was.

When HeroWars spawned its successor, HeroQuest, we suddenly had something called "common magic", which once again mixed up the cosmologies, or at least made me mix it all up. Unless I misremember (I've never owned HQ), it also did change the name of one of the other schools of magic.

So, how on earth do all these related? Why are they all looking so similar when they depict three very different views on the world? With the great Yellow Tome, the new BRP rules, I've been thinking of a Gloranthan game but have hit upon the problem of relating to all those old RQ based books that I have.

Now we go into the territory of Gloranthan high weirdness.

The heroforming of HeroWars seemed a perfect fit for superpowers. The use of theistic feats for skill augmentation would be a simple +20% to a skill if your Devotion skill was higher than the skill rolling for. Animism then would just use the summoning skill, and the sorcery system using the regular spell system.

Do this in any shape or form look or feel like either RQ2/3 or HeroWars/Quest? I have no idea.

Frankly, when I a few weeks ago got hold of the British edition of RQ3 all these questions came back to me again. Anyone know enough of all these schools of magic to tell me how battle, spirit, common and sorcery magic all related? Oh, there were divine and rune magic, and a few others as well. Arrgh!

More musings on AD&D saving categories

Since Daniel Boggs mentioned that the Saving Throw categories are actually in one of the manuscripts Dave sent to Gary, and the fact that it actually contains a category for lasers (I hadn't realized what I saw, when reading "death ray"), I guess it's not unlikely that Dave Arneson invented the concept. Still, why did he do it like he did?

In OD&D, there is a "Death Ray", or possibly "Death, Ray" category, and a "Stone". Those are gone in AD&D, and also "Rod, Staff or Wand" have been harmonized into one, in contrast to OD&D where "Staves & Spells" and "All Wands" are different. Some of these I find puzzling.

In AD&D it feels like the categories could be described as "Physical Transformation", "Transformation again", "Magic Items", "Area Effects" and "The rest". While The first two are slightly overlapping, it at least makes more sense than OD&D.

I have a heard time figuring out how anyone could have been thinking when staves are one category and wands another. Even if these once were stat checks, it's now impossible to see which stat covered which one. In the comments I got the suggestion that when a PC encounter he should probably save vs "Rock Slide" or something to that effect, and it will be up to the DM to base it off a sensible number. I wonder if the categories are different things Dave had encountered in his Blackmoor campaign, and had noted down numbers for?

Considering Arneson and his friends had been playing wargames, I think about how saves are used in the rules I know. Often you roll morale for your troops in the same way as you roll a save in D&D or T&T, to avoid something bad happening. Also, cohesion and acceptance of orders is some mechanics I've seen. I see here at least a small suggestion the idea could have come from that background. Still no hint on if there are any system to the categories.

There are two things that bug me about all this. I would like to know what kind of thinking lies behind the original edition of D&D, and how the idea of rpg evolved. Lost knowledge is so sad. The other thing is my thirst for symmetry, rationalizing and shaving off rough edges on rules to make them run smoothly not only from familiarity. Both these annoy me in this case.

Having been reminded that T&T actually reinvented the idea of basing "saves" of the stats I'm inclined to put it back into D&D like I think of it. It can't really stop me from turn and poke those saves a bit more, though.

AD&D saves and ability checks

One of my commentators on yesterday's post mentioned something I find interesting, and suggests something about the relationship between abilities and saves that I had also been thinking on.

The first time I was DM for B/X, I instinctively asked for a d20 against a stat when a situation came up which I had no other mechanic for. The game I had been running before that had been D&D 3rd ed. and as far as I know, that mechanic is not specified there. Rolling against a stat seem to be a long standing way to resolve things like that, though.

In 3rd ed. the relationship between saves and stats are quite clear. You get a bonus on all saves from higher than usual stats and they have tidied up the zoo of saves into three general cases. If you compare this to how Call of Cthulhu, or other BRP games, handle it you can see that the Idea and Luck rolls etc. are all mapped to one stat each. In the new big Yellow Tome of BRP, I think they have expanded it to one such roll for each stat. Is this a way worth taking with D&D?

I like the idea of saves, but if you should have more than one, or not just a LUCK score, maybe it could be interesting to tie them to the stats. Inspired by the neat Target20 system, maybe you could roll a d20 trying to beat 20, and getting a bonus from the stat the DM decide or you talk him to accepting, getting a bonus according to whatever bonus scheme you like. Say, +1 per 2 above 13 or just +2 if above 15. You choose.

Looking at the different saves in AD&D I do find it slightly odd to Save versus Petrification when avoiding a rockslide, and I'd argue a bonus for high DEX any time. The system above sounds flexible enough to me.

Then I guess you could just say the DM asks for a Save vs. Rocks and invent some shit on the spot...